Archive for May, 2016

With farmers market season upon us, anyone looking for extra incentive to get up early on Saturday to check out the organic offerings from local growers might want to take a gander at the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen,” the organization’s annual roundup of conventionally grown produce most likely to be contaminated with pesticides.

And that plural—pesticides—is no joke: Despite growing consumer demand for healthier, more sustainably grown food, many samples of the most contaminated produce tested positive for residues from not one but two or more chemical pesticides. A single sample of strawberries contained residues from a whopping 17 different pesticides.

The EWG’s new list, released Tuesday, is based on tests conducted in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on close to 7,000 samples. While nearly three-quarters of those samples contained residue from at least one pesticide, the advocacy…